


all the things you said

by softnow



Category: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (TV)
Genre: (except i don't know anything about law so sorry about that), Angst, Canon Compliant, Canon Divergent, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Josh is mentioned sometimes, Lawyers doing Law Stuff, Obligatory Raging Waters references, Office Shenanigans, Pining!Nathaniel, Silas Bunch Being a Piece Of Trash™, basically there's a lot of stuff here, but also some of them are, just read it and see!, rehearsal dinner
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-11
Updated: 2018-06-22
Packaged: 2019-05-05 09:20:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 11,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14615121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softnow/pseuds/softnow
Summary: a collection of dialogue-prompt-inspired ficlets, stretching between season 2, season 3, and beyond. some fluff, some angst. it's a grab-bag of rethaniel!





	1. "you've thought about this, haven't you?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompted by [notbang](https://archiveofourown.org/users/notbang) on tumblr.

“You’ve thought about this, haven’t you?”

The door to the patio clicks behind her, and Rebecca turns to find Nathaniel standing there, hands tucked into his pockets. His chin is tilted up and he gazes down his nose at her, that infuriatingly smug look on his face. She’d come out here to have a moment of peace, to really breathe it in—her  _rehearsal dinner_. For her  _wedding_. To  _Josh Chan_. She doesn’t need this right now, her boss smirking at her, ruining her evening.

“What do you mean, have I thought about this?” she asks with a sigh. “What do you want, Nathaniel?”

He shrugs nonchalantly, walking past her to stare out into the night.

“I just don’t want to have to listen to your boohooing all day when one of you realizes you’ve made a mistake, that’s all,” he says.

“Wha— uh—  _No!_ ” she squeaks. He turns to look at her, one brow arched as she continues, “No.  _No_. No, there will be no boohooing. You know why? Because this isn’t a mistake. It’s fate. It’s true love. It’s what I’ve waited my whole life for. Not that you’d know anything about that.”

He shakes his head with a chuckle and runs his thumb over his bottom lip before pointing a finger at her. “You’re delusional,” he says. “But okay, fine, sure.  _Suuure_ , sure. He’s the man of your dreams, right? That guy? In there?”

Nathaniel nods his head towards the glass door and Rebecca turns. Josh is in the kitchen, balancing a mini quiche on his forehead. As she watches, he snaps his head forward and tries to catch the quiche in his mouth like a dog. He misses. The quiche hits the floor.

“Y…es.  _Yes_. That guy in there, he’s the man of my dreams. The love of my life. The mate to my soul, if you will. And we are very happy. And we’re going to continue to be very happy. And I’ve thought a lot about it, and also I don’t appreciate your tone, mister.”

She crosses her arms over her chest and fixes him with a stare, daring him to say something else. He holds her gaze, unflinching, and closes the distance between them. Rebecca casts a panicked look over her shoulder, but everyone inside is watching Josh. Nobody notices when Nathaniel lowers his face to hers, his breath warm on her cheek, his eyes on her mouth.

“Okay,” he says, his voice soft. “You tell yourself that, Rebecca.”

He leans in, the tip of his nose barely brushing hers, and her eyelids flutter shut on their own accord. A beat passes, and then she hears the door click again.

When she opens her eyes, she’s alone on the patio. She heaves a labored, shaky breath and places a hand on her chest. Her heart’s beating too quickly. She tells herself it’s anger—anger at Nathaniel being such a pompous dick, thinking he can say things like that to her at her rehearsal dinner. For her  _wedding._  To  _Josh Chan._  The  _man_  of her  _dreams_.

“The man of my dreams,” she whispers.

She marches back into the house and straight up to Josh, grabbing him by the neck and pulling him in for a crushing kiss. She doesn’t acknowledge Nathaniel slipping out the front door. She also doesn’t acknowledge that tiny voice, the one that sounds too much like her own voice asking,  _right?_


	2. "tell me again."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> some season 2 office snark!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompted by [heartbash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeartBash/pseuds/HeartBash) on tumblr.

“Tell me again,” Rebecca says, folding her arms over her chest. “Why am I the only one who had to come in today? Is this some sort of punishment? Is it because I replaced all of your pens with glitter pens?”

“That was you?” Nathaniel asks, squinting at her from behind his desk.

“What? I— No! Who said anything? I didn’t say anything! Why am I here?”

Nathaniel blinks, sighs. “Tim was  _supposed_  to be handling the Richardson case, but I went over his briefs last night, and they’re garbage because he’s an idiot. So I need you to fix them.”

He holds a file out to her.

“On…a Saturday?” Rebecca asks, not moving. “You made me come in to fix Tim’s briefs on a Saturday? But it’s…Saturday.”

“Great, you know the days of the week. Wonderful. Yes, it’s Saturday. And this brief sucks. And it need to not suck before we meet with Richardson on Monday. So,” he shakes the file, “fix it.”

“The brief isn’t the only thing that sucks,” Rebecca mutters, swiping the file from him.

“What was that?” Nathaniel asks, raising his eyebrows and craning his neck towards her.

“Nothing,  _boss_.” She stretches her mouth into a caricature of a smile and backs out of his office.

At her desk, she tosses the file down and flops into her chair.

“Stupid bossy stupid head,” she grumbles, but she gets to work anyway.

—

A little after noon, Nathaniel breezes by her desk on his way to the elevator, but Rebecca doesn’t stop to wonder where he’s going. She’s not even halfway through the file—he was right, it  _does_  suck—but she’s found her groove, sinking into the work easily and with gusto.

She’s chewing on the end of her pen, brow furrowed in concentration, when the elevator dings a second time. A moment later, Nathaniel places a foil-covered takeout bowl and plastic fork on her desk. He has a salad in a plastic container in his other hand.

“What’s this?” she asks, poking the bowl with her pen like it might come alive.

“Lunch,” he says. “It’s lunch time.”

Rebecca looks up at him suspiciously and peels the edge of the foil back. Inside is steaming penne, the good kind from Mario’s Pizza with lots of cheese and house-made tomato sauce.

“Seriously?”

“What?” Nathaniel asks, shifting his weight. “You don’t like pasta?”

“Are you kidding? I  _love_  pasta. I mean, duh. I just thought, you know, mister no-candy-in-the-office would be morally opposed to this,” she says, waving a hand over the bowl.

He sniffs and doesn’t look her in the eye.

“You’re here on a Saturday. I just thought, well, it’s the least I could do.” He finally meets her gaze and there’s something defensive in his face, in the tightness of his jaw, like he’s daring her to say something about it, that gives her pause.

“Thank you,” she says. “That’s actually…very nice.”

“Well,” he says. His mouth works around other words that don’t quite make it out. He nods once before heading toward his office with his salad. There’s something so sad about that—a man eating a salad alone in his office on a Saturday—that Rebecca’s mouth opens before she can think about it.

“Hey—! Uh, Nathaniel?”

He turns back to her, eyebrows raised.

“Thirty minute lunches…that applies to Saturdays too, right?”

“I suppose so,” he says.

Rebecca caps her pen and closes the file around it like a bookmark. She scoops up her pasta and her fork and marches to the kitchen, to the table she usually shares with Paula.

“Come on,” she says, pointing at chairs. “Sit.”

“Uh—what?”

“You made me come in on a Saturday, and work alone on a Saturday, but you’re not going to make me eat lunch alone on a Saturday. Sit.”

His face is guarded, but he does as she asks. They mostly talk about the case while they eat, and after exactly thirty minutes, Nathaniel stands, disposes of the rest of his salad, and says, “Alright. Break’s over. I want those briefs on my desk by five.”

He stalks back to his office, but Rebecca takes her time to finish her lunch. If she’s going to be here on a Saturday, she’s going to take as long as she damn well pleases to eat, thank you very much. When she’s done, though, she returns to her desk to find a single foil-wrapped piece of chocolate on the center of the Richardson file.

She glances into Nathaniel’s office and their eyes meet for a fraction of a second before he jerks his head down, makes a show of looking busy on his computer. Rebecca smiles and pops the chocolate into her mouth.

Maybe there’s a person in there after all.


	3. "you make me want things i can't have."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> set during the 8-month affair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompted by [anthropologicalhands](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anthropologicalhands/pseuds/anthropologicalhands) on tumblr.

He doesn’t mean to say it. Really, he doesn’t. Especially not now, in his bed, with her legs wrapped around him and her chest heaving. But he can’t help it. He takes one look at her face—eyes shut tight, cheeks flushed, mouth open in a silent moan as she rides the last shockwaves of her orgasm—and it tumbles right out:

“You make me want things I can’t have.”

He knows it’s a mistake as soon as it’s out. Her body stiffens beneath him. Her breath hitches. The hands that were gripping his neck fall away.

He tries to take it back, buries his face in her neck and kisses the spot he knows she likes, dragging his teeth along her skin, but she pushes on his shoulder until he raises up to look at her.

“Nathaniel,” she says, and he wishes he had a time machine so he could rewind to five minutes ago when she was moaning his name instead, stretching it on her tongue like the sweetest taffy.

“I know.”

“Don’t.”

“I know.”

“We—we can’t.”

“I  _know_ ,” he says. He knows they can’t. He knows she’s—she’s recovering and not getting attached, or whatever it is she thinks she’s doing, and he knows he has a girlfriend, and he knows that girlfriend isn’t her, isn’t Rebecca, he  _knows_.

He knows that this isn’t a thing, that it’s only sex. He knows he should be happy with that. But he also knows he wants so much more. He wants to wake up to her and kiss her shoulder, wants to take her to breakfast, to surprise her with flowers, to take her dancing. Wants to introduce her to his mother and show her his childhood home and see hers, wants to drive her to therapy appointments and wait in the car and buy her donuts when she’s done. Wants to care for her, wants to love her.

Yes, love her.

The look in her eyes—pained, guarded—tells him she’s two seconds away from gathering her clothes and leaving, and he takes her face between his palms to keep her still.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No,” she says, wriggling beneath him, and it occurs to him how ridiculous this is—them, both naked, still halfway joined yet miles apart.

“I’m sorry,” he says again, but he only halfway means it. He’s sorry he upset her, but he’s not sorry for the way he feels. “Will you stay? Please?”

“Nathaniel…”

“I’ll stop talking,” he says, lowering his face to her collarbones. “Won’t say another word.”

He kisses her there, nipping at her skin, soothing it with his tongue while one hand fists in her hair to pull her head back and the other finds her breast. He’s not proud of this, of using sex to get what he wants, but he doesn’t stop.

“Nathaniel,” she says again, the last syllable dissolving into mush as he tilts his hips forward into hers, and he knows he has her.

For tonight, at least. For now, he has her.


	4. "i don't owe you an explanation."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> more snarky s2 office shenanigans, this time with more lawyering!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompted by [cori_the_bloody](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cori_the_bloody/pseuds/cori_the_bloody) on tumblr.

When Josh texts her to say that they’ve found roaches pretty much everywhere in Aloha’s and are closing to fumigate—and follows up with a screenshot of the weather forecast (perfect), a picture of a water slide, and two koala emoticons—Rebecca hesitates for maybe two seconds. Then she sweeps her belongings into her purse, grabs her keys, and heads for the elevator. She nearly makes it, too.

“Where are you off to?” Nathaniel appears as if by magic to block her path, a coffee mug in one hand and a file in the other.

“I have…a thing.”

“What thing?” He takes a sip of coffee and peers at her over the rim, waiting.

“A thing-thing.” She tries to dodge around him, but he holds out an arm to stop her. “Come on.”

“Just tell me where you’re going at—” He glances at his watch. “—nine forty-five in the morning. On a Tuesday.”

Rebecca crosses her arms and huffs. “I don’t owe you an explanation.”

“Oh? I’m sorry, have you forgotten that I’m your boss? And you can’t just swan off whenever you feel like it? You actually have to  _do_  your job to  _have_  a job.” He shakes his head. “Why does nobody around here seem to understand that?”

“Look, okay, fine. You want an explanation? It’s…my cat. Yup. My cat was…attacked by a dog, one of those…really vicious ones that kind of looks like Mike Tyson, and my neighbor just called to tell me that he’s fading fast, and I need to get to the vet ASAP.” She does her best to put on a grave face. “So that’s why I need to go. Can I go? Let me go.”

Nathaniel considers this. “You have a cat?”

“Yup. Uh-huh. That’s what I just said.”

“Really? Because I distinctly remember overhearing you tell Paula in the break room last week that the only people who own cats are spinsters, the elderly, and families in horror movies.” He narrows his eyes at her and cocks his head to the side. “Actually, you’re not wrong.”

Rebecca steeples her fingers and presses them to her mouth. “Did I say  _my_  cat? Nooo, no no no. I don’t have a cat. That’s—psh!—that’s ridiculous. What I  _meant_  to say is…it’s Josh’s cat.”

Nathaniel gives her an incredulous look.

“Yeah,” she continues. “And I, uh, I’ve been pet-sitting while he’s away in…Redondo…for a…karate convention. So I really need to go, right, because this cat is my ward, and if something were to happen to this cat, Josh would never forgive me and our relationship would be ruined and I would just be—ugh—so sad, and you don’t want that, right? A sad worker is a bad worker, or something? You have a saying for that, right?”

“Okay, that’s not even remotely convincing. I’d say good try, but we both know it wasn’t.” He holds the file in his hand out to her. “You’re not going anywhere. I need you to prepare for the Davenport case. They’re coming in at three, and we need to be  _flawless_.”

“What? Why? Make Darryl or Tim or somebody do it. I have to…” She makes a walking motion with her fingers.

Nathaniel shakes the file. “Davenport has the potential to be a bigger account than Crestfield, but they’re notorious hard asses. I know better firms than this that have been trying to land them for years.”

“So?”

“ _So_  I can’t afford to have somebody screw this up. And like it or not, you’re the only one who’s decently competent around here. So cancel whatever you’re really trying to run away for, and get to work. You know, the thing I pay you to do.” He forces the file into her hand. Rebecca opens her mouth to continue her failing protest (nobody can say she doesn’t go down without a fight), but he cuts her off. “It’s not a request.”

She glares at him, but she takes the file and slinks back to her desk. What a jerk. She could be eating churros in an innertube right now. And instead she’s here, chained to paperwork by Mr. Dreamy Dictator who probably thinks “fun” is some sort of venereal disease.

With a sad huff, Rebecca texts Josh to tell him she won’t be making it (with six crying emoticons, five multicolored hearts, and a file cabinet—he’ll know what it means). Then she sets her phone aside, lines up her assortment of pens and highlighters, and gets to work.

—

At noon, she takes forty-five minutes for lunch instead of the Plimpton-enforced thirty.

—

There are few things in the world that can make Rebecca forget about Joshua Felix Chan. It turns out a particularly good meeting is one of them. By the time she’s shaking the hands of Misters Davenport Junior and Senior and thanking them for choosing Plimpton, Plimpton, and Plimpton (and Whitefeather & Associates) to represent them in their asbestos suit, Josh is the furthest thing from her mind.

Instead, she’s filled with the warm confetti feeling of a job well done. (It may not be glitter, but it’s certainly close.)

After he shows out the Davenport duo, Nathaniel lingers in the conference room and watches Rebecca gather her things.

“Did you  _see_  the way they perked up the minute I mentioned those doctors that claim asbestos actually  _helps_  emphysema? God, it was almost too easy,” she crows.

“I didn’t expect them to topple so quickly,” he says. “Maybe I was right after all.”

She tucks a stack of papers under her arm and frowns. “Huh?”

“About you taking this firm to the next level.”

It doesn’t escape her that this is the sincerest, least backhanded compliment he’s paid her. The new wave of confetti bursting in her brain doesn’t escape her, either. She smiles, surprised but pleased, and he allows a small smile in return.

“Yeah,” she says. “Maybe you were.”

They regard each other across the conference table for long moment before Nathaniel clears his throat.

“Anyway,” he says. “Now that that’s taken care of, I left the documents for Wednesday’s depositions on your desk. I need you to proof them and get them back to me before you leave.”

And just like that, the confetti hits the ground, litter instead of glitter. She glances at the clock; there’s only forty minutes before she usually leaves. (Or at least, when she’s technically  _supposed_  to usually leave.)

“Wha—  _Nathaniel._  That’ll take hours!”

“So?”

“ _So_ —”

He holds up a hand to stop her, already moving towards the door. “Not a request,” he says with a smirk.

She imagines lighting him on fire as she trudges back to her desk. She’d start with the hair. Nobody so cruel should have hair that good.

True to his word, the deposition documents are waiting in the center of her desk in a bulging paper folder. Rebecca’s stomach sours just looking at it. She flings herself into her chair and slides the folder towards her, leafing through it to gauge just how angry she should be. A blue sticky note on the first page gives her pause.

_Rebecca—_

_Good work on Davenport. You can leave 30 min early, but I expect you here by 8am and these docs proofed by noon tomorrow._

_Give the cat my best._

_N_

She reads it twice to make sure this isn’t a dream, then glances over her shoulder. He meets her gaze through his office door and quickly looks away.

Rebecca smiles, folds the sticky note down the middle, and tucks it into her pocket. She puts the documents into her bag along with her laptop and heads for the elevator. This time, she makes it.

—

Later, after Josh has grown tired of her recounting every detail of the Davenport case (reenacting the particularly good parts) and sets up camp in front of the TV, Rebecca settles into bed with the folder and her office supplies.

—

The next morning, she’s the first person into the office after Nathaniel. She plunks the documents (twice reviewed) onto his desk.

His look of mild astonishment and respect is everything she’d hoped it would be.


	5. "i should have told you a long time ago."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which silas bunch is the worst, rebecca is a mess, and nathaniel wants to fix it. set somewhere in the 8-month affair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompted by [notbang](https://archiveofourown.org/users/notbang/pseuds/notbang) on tumblr. prompt was tweaked lightly to fit my needs!

He is getting ready for bed when she knocks at his door. He knows it’s her before he even opens it, because who else would it be, showing up uninvited at 11:28 on a Thursday night? He should be upset. Dropping by so late with no warning is considered, by most standards, exceptionally rude. Yet all he feels is a warm sense of excitement building low in his gut.

He smiles to himself as he goes to get the door, recalling other times she’s shown up late and unannounced. Times that involved trench coats and flying squirrel moves and Rebecca, bright and vivacious and eager.

As soon as he sees her, though, his insides go cold. She looks smaller than usual, drawn into herself, her arms wrapped around her chest. Her face is pale, and her eyes are red and swollen. She sniffs and offers him something that looks like a smile lost in translation.

“Rebecca? What’s wrong?” He steps out of the way to let her into the apartment and then reaches for her, taking her gently by the arms. “What happened?”

“I’m sorry,” she says, her voice thick and tired. “Heather’s with Hector and Paula has a big test tomorrow and Valencia’s not answering the phone and I just— I needed to not be alone.” The last word comes out as a mangled sob, and she claps a hand over her mouth.

“Shh, it’s fine. Tell me what happened.” He speaks calmly, but his chest is tight. She’s seemed better lately, she really has, but what if—?

Rebecca fishes something out of her pocket and thrusts it at him, curtailing his mental spiral before it can get too dark. It’s a pink envelope, and when he opens it, a picture of a sonogram falls out. His eyes jerk up to hers, his mouth slack, and she shakes her head.

“Turn it over.”

He does, and what he sees there replaces the breathless panic with overwhelming anger. It blooms hot and bitter in his veins, and he clenches his jaw so hard it hurts.

On the back of the sonogram is a baby shower invitation from Silas and Veronica Bunch. They’re expecting a daughter in May. They’re registered at Babies R Us. They’re very, very happy.

“So yeah,” Rebecca says. “Apparently my dad got  _married_  to some woman I’ve never heard of and couldn’t be bothered to tell me, but oh, look! He’s having a new  _daughter_  and I’m supposed to send  _diapers!_ ”

“Rebecca, I am so sor—”

“No, you know what, it’s fine.” She snatches the envelope and sonogram out of his hand. “It’s fine. He’s apparently super happy, and he’s getting a do-over with a new family and a new daughter who’s probably going to be perfect and beautiful and she’ll never have to use her suicidal thoughts to get into summer camp and it’s  _fine!_ ” Her voice rises to a shriek and then breaks as the tears come. Her face crumples and her shoulders heave.

Nathaniel pulls her against his chest and rubs her back, feeling her quake against him. If it weren’t for her here, now, in his arms, he thinks he’d take his jet to whatever particular corner of hell Silas calls home these days and have a few words with the man. The words consisting of  _fuck you, asshole_  before he used Silas’s face as target practice.

“And I looked her up on Facebook,” she sobs into his shirt, “and she’s  _twenty-six!_  I’m older than my  _step-mom!_ ” A fresh wave of tears breaks free and she clutches at him like she’s being swept out to sea and he’s a life preserver.

He opens his mouth to tell her that he still has all of his contacts from the masquerade, that all she has to do is say the word and he can have Silas in her desired degree of maimed by morning. But then she hiccups against him and says, in the most helpless, broken voice he’s ever heard, “Why wasn’t I ever enough?”

And  _oh_ , he wishes he could tell her. He wishes he could make her understand that it wasn’t her, it was never her. Her father’s a selfish, unfeeling dick, and Nathaniel knows this for a fact, because he’s spent his whole life with a version of him. But he also knows that there’s nothing he could say or do to make it sink in. He knows that all too well.

So he settles for lifting her gently into his arms and carrying her to his bed, pulled down and ready. He lays her in the sheets and waits for her to kick off her shoes, then pulls the blankets around her. When he slides in next to her, she turns to bury herself against his chest once more. He runs his fingers through her hair and lets her cry.

After a while, once her sobs have abated and stuffy sniffles have taken their place, he rests his cheek on her head and says, “Your father is a truly terrible person.”

She makes a choked sound in agreement, and he continues, “But  _you_. You are incredible. I don’t know how he can’t see that, but it’s not your fault. You are more than enough.”

Rebecca shakes her head. “No,” she says. “I’m obviously not. I’m replaceable. He didn’t like the daughter he had, so he’s just…rolling the dice for a new one.”

“You are  _not_  replaceable. Nobody could replace you.”

She’s silent for a long moment, and he thinks, foolishly, that she believes him. But then she sighs and rolls onto her back, pointedly not looking at him, and the space she leaves is cold.

“You did.”

Her words punch him in the stomach, an iron fist driving all of the air from his lungs. He pushes up onto an elbow to look at her, at the hard set of her jaw and the quiver in her mouth.

Part of him wonders how she could possibly think that, but the rational side of him realizes it makes perfect sense. To anyone paying attention, he  _has_  replaced her. New girlfriend, new life with someone who isn’t her, someone he takes to restaurants and water parks and movies. All of the things he could be doing with her.

“That’s not fair,” he says, but isn’t it? Their relationship wasn’t even in the ground for seventy-two hours before he welcomed someone new into his bed.

Rebecca lets out a long, shaky breath and scrubs her face with the heels of her hands. “You’re right. I’m sorry. You have every right to replace me. God.” She sits up and Nathaniel follows. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come here. I’m not your responsibility.”

She tosses the blankets back and moves to stand up, but he catches her wrist.

“Hey,” he says, and kisses her.

It’s soft and dry, and he cups her face in his hand to keep her there. He only begins to relax when she grips his shoulder and melts into him. When she tries to part his lips with her tongue, he draws back.

“I didn’t replace you. I could never do that.”

“I don’t believe you,” she says, but she kisses him like she wants to.

Her mouth is desperate and a little salty from her tears, but he lets her draw him down to the mattress on top of her. They kiss without any destination for a long time until she tugs at his shirt. He catches one of her hands in his and breaks away.

“We don’t have to do this,” he says. His head feels foggy and full of her.

“I know,” she says, and pulls him back down.

He makes love to her as reverently as he can and tries to tell her with his body all of the things he should have told her a long time ago. His mouth on her neck is  _You astound me._ His hand on her breast is  _You’re all I want._  His fingers in her hair are  _I never want you to go._ And his hips, returning to her again and again like a ship coming home to port, are  _I love you, I love you, I love you._

After, when they lay sweaty and spent in each other’s arms, she asks him if he meant it.

“Yes,” he says without hesitation. All of it. Yes.

The next morning, he lets her burn the sonogram in his sink. They watch it blaze out, and then he turns on the tap and washes the ashes down the drain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm really proud of this one?? it turned out better than i hoped and i almost posted it as its own stand-alone thing, but i decided to leave it as part of this collection but i just had to say that this one is like my favorite child.


	6. "how much of that did you hear?"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which rebecca and nathaniel spend a soft morning in bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompted by [pictureofsoph1sticatedgrace](http://pictureofsoph1sticatedgrace.tumblr.com/) on tumblr.
> 
> set in some distant and/or alternative future where rebecca’s still the senior partner and everyone is happy and well.

“Okay, so, the bakery said the cake will be ready at two, so while I go get that, I’m going to need you to pop on over to Jimmy’s and get the booze. I texted you the list V sent me, but go ahead and add some more wine to that for Paula and Scott’s anniversary thing tomorrow. But—oh! No Merlot. That’s what Paula blacked out on after the Tanya incident and, yikes, we talk no mo’ about the Merlot.

“And after you do that, if you could stop at the party place on East Cameron and pick up some streamers, that would be great. I know, I know. Paula said she had it covered, but she texted me and apparently Tommy took her whole stash when he ran out of toilet paper to TP his science teacher’s house last night. And, you know, Brendan’s getting released from juvie today, so she can’t go get more before the party. And Darryl can _not_  have a birthday party without streamers.

“Oh, also, Heather’s unveiling some new mimosa at brunch tomorrow—it’s got, like, three different kinds of melons or something—and I told her we’d stop by because she’s super excited about it, and… Hey.” Rebecca nudges Nathaniel with her foot. “Are you listening? How much of that did you hear?”

“Hmmm.” He glances up at her from where he’s sprawled sideways across the foot of the bed and running his hand over her shins. “Booze, streamers, melons. No Merlot. Got it.”

He grabs her foot and tilts it to press a kiss to the inside of her ankle where he knows she’s particularly sensitive, and Rebecca relaxes into her pillow.

“Mm, that’s nice.” She’s talking about his mouth, gentle on her skin, but she’s also kind of talking about this morning as a whole.

It’s rare that they spend lazy Saturdays in bed. Nathaniel’s an early riser even when he doesn’t have to be at the office, and he’s learned the secret to getting her out of bed at a decent hour, too: mushroom omelettes and asiago bagels.

Yesterday, though, they had landed a new big-wig client, one they’d been after for months, and Nathaniel had taken her out to celebrate. They’d had a bit too much to drink and stumbled home to his apartment, giddy and horny, and it had been very, very early by the time they finally exhausted each other enough to sleep.

And when they had woken up several hours later than usual, they’d still been naked, and one thing had led to another, and here they were. Still in bed, wrapped in rumpled sheets, at noon.

It was, in a word, delicious. And speaking of—

“Also, hey, while I’m thinking of it,” she says, tapping a toe against his chest. “Don’t forget that you’re in charge of donuts and coffee next week. The good kind.” When he pulls a face, she adds, “No, no, no. A bet’s a bet.”

Nathaniel groans and drops his head onto his arm.

“Remind me why I agreed to this.”

“Because  _you_  thought you’d win. Ha!” Rebecca tucks her hands beneath her head and beams at him.

Last week, he had (quite foolishly) bet the entire office that they couldn’t go a whole day in utter silence. If he won, they’d work late for a week. But if he lost… Donuts. Coffee. The good kind.

“How was I supposed to know those losers could keep their mouths shut for so long?” He massages her instep absently with his thumb. “And how was that the least productive day of the week? No Karen talking about her vagina. No Tim talking about Manitoba. And still,  _nobody_  did a  _thing_. How is that possible?”

“Well, it’s harder to multitask when you’re texting than it is when you’re talking, and we couldn’t talk, so…” She flashes him a faux-sheepish smile.

He sighs and shakes his head, but she doesn’t miss the fondness in his eyes.

“You’re supposed to be setting a good example for them, miss senior partner.”

“Hey, I set a great example.  _For_  example, I’m the one that got everybody exclusively using GIFs after lunch, and a picture’s worth a thousand words, so I saved at least, like, thirty seconds per text. So take…that.”

“You’re insufferable.”

“And you’re on donut duty. I’m thinking the dinosaur ones on Monday. Start the week off right with a mesozoic sugar coma.”

“Uh-huh.”

Nathaniel stretches to kiss the inside of her knee. The warm July sun sifting through his gauzy curtains has turned him golden and soft, and Rebecca’s heart squeezes as she watches him settle back and resume drawing his fingers over her legs. His hair is tousled from sleep and from her hands, and his expression lacks any of its trademark sternest or cockiness.

It occurs to her with a dawning sense of wonder how used to this she is, to seeing him so naked (in more ways than one). To the casual way he touches her and knows her body, her wants. To the way they have become, almost without realizing it, a team outside of the office as well as in. She thinks of Paula texting her the invite to Darryl’s surprise birthday bash last week, and how she’d replied with  _their_  RSVP. Not hers. Theirs.

This is her life now, she realizes. Work and sex and streamers and wine. And how crazy is it—how wonderfully, beautifully, miraculously crazy—that she’s not had to plot or scheme or play pretend for any of it? How incredibly crazy that the people counting on her to bring cake, to sample mimosas, to approve vacation days, to be there in the morning are doing just that: counting on  _her_. Not a character. Not a fantasy. Her.

“Hey,” Nathaniel says, gently tugging her back to earth as he noses her thigh. “What time did you say you needed to get the cake?”

“Mm, two.” She shifts her hips and lets her legs fall open.

“What time is it now?”

Rebecca strains to squint at his watch on the bedside table. “Twelve twenty.”

“Really,” he says, his voice low and warm.

She meets his eyes and basks in the undisguised want she sees there. He smiles. His hands push the sheet draped across her torso aside and smooth over her stomach. And this, she thinks,  _this_  is what Saturdays were invented for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is hands-down the fluffiest thing i've ever written, but i don't care, because i'm very pleased with how it turned out and also these two deserve happiness, dammit!


	7. "we need to talk about what happened last night."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> following the events of [if you want something else](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14567901), rebecca confronts nathaniel at his apartment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompted by [notbang](https://archiveofourown.org/users/notbang/pseuds/notbang) on tumblr.
> 
> you might want to read [iywse](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14567901) first!

It takes her five minutes of pacing the hall to work up the courage to knock on his door, and she nearly runs away in the stretch of time it takes for him to open it.

_This is a bad idea._

She’s fishing for her keys and preparing to bolt when he finally appears.

“Rebecca? What are you doing here?” His expression is surprised but not unhappy.

“We, uh, ha-a-a.” She clasps her hands against her chest and fights through the nervous laughter. “We need to talk about what happened last night.”

Nathaniel raises his eyebrows and quirks his mouth into that annoyingly smug smile that really, honestly, should not be as attractive as it is. This is so not what she needs right now.

“Alright,” he says, stepping back to let her in. “Although we, y’know,  _talked about it_  for a long time on the phone, so I don’t know what’s left to say. Unless you’re here to elaborate on that thing you mentioned you could do, the mouth thing? Because I’ve gotta admit, I’m intrigued.”

“No, Nathaniel, ugh. What we did last night at dinner, a-and on the phone, that was a mistake.”

“Really.” He crosses his arms and lifts his chin. “Because I remember you saying you wouldn’t undo it. In fact,  _you_  called  _me_. At three AM. From the bath.”

“I know. I know what I said, and what…I did. But that was a mistake, okay? I was on a wedding high, and then I was on a…a sex high, and I wasn’t thinking straight.”

“No, you don’t get to do that. I asked you  _both times_  what you wanted. I asked you if you were sure. You don’t get to play the ‘I wasn’t thinking straight’ card now just because you’re feeling guilty.” He stares at her, his eyes hard.

Rebecca sighs. She crosses her arms and averts her gaze, feeling small and scrutinized. The worst part is, she knows he’s right. He gave her ample opportunities to back out. He did his part. He checked in with her. And what had she said?  _I want this._

“Okay, fine. Fine. I made those choices, but they were wrong. What we did—what  _I_  did—was wrong.”

Nathaniel nods, considering. “So why are you here?”

It catches her off balance. She blinks. “Uh… I told you. To—tell you that what we did was wrong.”

“Okay, it was wrong. And you’re wanting to—what?—make sure I know it’ll never happen again?”

“Yes. Exactly. Never again.”

“Right. So why are you  _here?_ ” He takes a step closer to her. “You could have texted. Called. You have my number. If what we did was such a bad idea, if you feel  _so bad_  about it, why did you have to come here in person to tell me that?”

“Because…” Her mouth feels dry. She takes a step back and her calf connects with his coffee table. “I wanted you to know…” She looks at his mouth. She doesn’t want to, but she can’t help it. It’s pressed into a firm line, and she hates that she knows exactly what it tastes like.

“That it was a mistake?” he offers, closing in on her.

“Yes,” she says, barely above a whisper. “Yeah.”

“You know what I think?” His gaze dips to her lips, lingers, and then finds her eyes. “I think maybe you tried to fuck your fiancé this morning and it was lame and boring and now you’re feeling guilty—”

“No.”

“—because you want something more.” A beat. He gives her an skeptical look. “No?”

“No.”

She tosses her head back, trying to seem stern and only succeeding in bringing her face closer to his. His head dips down reflexively, and he doesn’t miss the catch in her breath.

“No. Okay.” He leans in close enough to brush his nose against her cheek. “So tell me you don’t want me to kiss you right now. Tell me that’s not why you’re here.”

“I…”

He feels more than sees the flutter of her eyelashes as her eyes fall shut.

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m not…”

“Hmmm.”

His hands ache for her. Every cell in his body is screaming for him to grab her, to crush her to him. He has replayed last night a thousand times in his mind, but it isn’t close to enough.

This must be what junkies feel like, he thinks. If the high of heroin is anything like the fuzzy, dizzying burn he feels just breathing her air, he can understand why people shoot up. It’s intoxicating.

But he won’t. He won’t grab her, won’t chase that high, until she lets him. He needs that, needs to know she wants it, that she came here for it. He’s heard her say  _mistake_  too many times now. He doesn’t want to hear it again.

So he stands still, feeling the ghost of her mouth in the space between them and praying—begging—for her to need this as badly as he does. And then—

“ _Nathaniel._ ” It comes out half sigh, half plea, and then she’s reaching for him and he’s reaching for her, and it’s messy and loose and she bumps his nose too hard and his hand gets stuck in a tangled curl, and it’s everything.

He half-walks, half-carries her to his bed and deposits her there among his pillows. He drags his mouth across her collarbone and pants into her ear, “Is this a mistake?”

_Am I a mistake?_

“No, God, no,” she gasps, arching hungrily beneath him. “Please, I need— I need…”

He swallows the rest of her words and tastes the desire on her tongue. He gives her what she needs, again and again and again, until she’s boneless and aching.

When she stumbles from bed on unsteady legs, sweat-slicked and beautiful, he ignores the tightening in his chest. It’s certainly not insecurity, the fear that she’ll take back what she said. And it’s certainly not jealousy, either, over the fact that she’s pulling on her pants to go home to another man. And it’s not a combination of the two of those things that propels him from bed after her, to catch her around the waist and kiss her soundly.

She indulges him for a long moment and then pushes him away.

“We can’t do this again. Okay? I’m getting married. We can’t.”

“Was it boring?” he asks, the words coming out in one rushed breath.

“What?” Rebecca shakes her head and gives him an indecipherable smile. “No, Nathaniel, it was… It was  _incredible_. But we can’t—”

“No,” he says. “Not that.” (But he’ll take the compliment.  _Incredible_. He could think of some other, stronger adjectives to describe it, but he’ll take incredible.) “This morning. Was I right?”

Her smile falters and he sees all the confirmation he needs in her eyes before she jerks away, averting her gaze and clasping her bra.

“I don’t know why you care,” she says, too harshly. “I don’t know what you want from me. It’s the chase, right? Well, chase over. You got it, and now it’s done. And I need to go.”

Rebecca snatches her purse from the floor and Nathaniel follows her to the door, pathetically vulnerable when he realizes he’s still naked.

“Hey.” He reaches for her, but she side-steps him.

“I’m getting married,” she says. “This can’t— We can’t— Maybe if I wasn’t, but I am, so I have to—”

And she’s gone, the door fitting firmly into the frame. Nathaniel stands there, feeling weird. There’s confusion, but that’s par for the course with Rebecca. There’s arousal, low and unwarranted, but there nonetheless. But there’s also something else, something heavy and sore in the vicinity of his stomach.

He doesn’t like it and doesn’t know what to do with it, so he occupies himself with redressing and straightening his rumpled bed. He won’t think about it, and he won’t think about her, and he definitely won’t answer the phone if she calls. Not that he’s thinking about her calling, or wondering if she might take another bath later. Not at all.

Outside, in the parking lot, Rebecca sits with her forehead resting on her steering wheel, feeling weird. There’s guilt, but that’s expected when one cheats on one’s fiancé for the third time in less than twenty-four hours. There’s a sting, a physical as well as an emotional one, and that’s understandable, too. But there’s also something else, something warm and suffocating, that she doesn’t know how to interpret.

So she drives home with shaky hands and tries not to think about him. About his eyes and his mouth and his hands, so unexpectedly gentle when he touches her. She tries to block the image of his face as he comes, of the feather-light kisses he drops in her hair when he quakes with aftershocks, of the surprisingly earnest way he laughs at her jokes.

She tells herself that none of that matters, that it was all a mistake. She tells herself it’s wedding jitters causing her to act out, to do things she wouldn’t normally do. She tells herself that this is something she wouldn’t normally do. She tells herself she’ll delete his number from her phone as soon as she gets home, that she won’t text him or call him ever again.

(She tells herself a lot of things.)


	8. "i can't keep kissing strangers and pretending that they're you."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _He tries to deny that he has a type, that he’s looking for anything specific. He’s not looking for anything more specific than a warm, willing body to help him forget himself for the night._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompted by [notbang](https://archiveofourown.org/users/notbang/pseuds/notbang) on tumblr.
> 
> this is some kind of alternate look at the end of 3.09/the space before 3.10.

After Mona come Elizabeth and Marissa and Julie. There are other girls too, girls with forgettable names and forgettable faces. Girls he kisses for a while in the back of the bar. Girls he can’t bring himself to take home.

He tries to deny that he has a type, that he’s looking for anything specific. He’s not looking for anything more specific than a warm, willing body to help him forget himself for the night. It’s not until White Josh points it out that he realizes.

“I don’t know why you’re still dancing with her,” he says one night, well on his way to drunk, when Nathaniel slides up next to him to order a drink for the girl waiting on the dance floor. “You’re not going to take her home.”

“What? How do you know that?”

White Josh sighs like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “She’s too tall. And her hair—” He gestures around his shoulders. “It’s too long. And straight.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

He takes the drink back to the girl and shrugs off Whijo’s words, but he doesn’t take her home at the end of the night. Which has nothing to do with her height, he tells himself, or her hair. Or the fact that her eyes are too brown, her voice too soft. He’s simply not feeling it, and that’s all.

The next weekend, when he leaves with a new girl with a short, curled bob and big blue eyes, he ignores Whijo’s smug stare. This has nothing to do with her. He’s horny and doesn’t feel like being alone, and that’s all.

And when he asks—casually—on the way back to his apartment if she’s hungry, if perhaps she’d like to stop somewhere for french fries, or maybe a late-night donut, he tells himself he’s just being kind. He can’t remember her name, but he’s nothing if not a gracious one-night stand. It has nothing to do with some nameless craving for kisses that taste like sugar and salt.

He’s not sure how long he goes on like that, but he knows it’s too long. The weekends blur together into one aching mass of empty sex and the wrong perfume and painfully polite smalltalk.

Then there’s the convention. It’s a lawyer thing, a big summit in San Diego. He goes with Darryl and they manage, somehow, to talk only about business. And it’s nice, Nathaniel realizes, to spend a weekend clear-headed and thinking about work. Maybe this was the refresh button he needed.

But there’s a little soiree on the last night, a get-together in the hotel bar that serves martinis way,  _way_  too strong. He meets her as he’s waiting for his third—or fourth? He’s lost count—and he knows what happens next, because she’s short and soft and brunette and talking a mile a minute about Roe v. Wade. She doesn’t tell him her name and he doesn’t ask. He lets his imagination fill it in.

He’s sick all of the way back to West Covina.  _Hungover,_  he tells Darryl when he gives him the keys to drive.  _A big mistake._

Whijo calls him the next Friday night. There’s a new gay bar on East Cameron, a really upscale one, which means it’ll be bursting with bachelorette parties, so how does he feel about hitting the town?

Nathaniel almost says yes, but then he thinks about the lawyer girl from the convention, the one who’d smiled too much and tried to give him her card when they were done. He thinks about how she’d looked beneath him (wrong) and above him (wrong), and how he’d felt when he’d left her hotel room (wrong wrong wrong).

“Sorry,” he says. “Not tonight.”

He goes for a drive instead. He rolls all of the windows down and just drives, no destination in mind. But he’s not entirely surprised when he finds himself turning left down a familiar residential road, idling in front of a pseudo-Spanish renovated meth house. There’s only one car parked on the curb—a Hyundai with a scratched front bumper. He looks at it for a while and then crosses the street before he can think too much about what he’s doing.

She’s in her pajamas when she opens the door, the ones with little hippos on them. Her hair is frizzy, her eyes slightly unfocused, and he can picture her so easily, asleep on the couch in front of the TV, a bowl of popcorn or maybe a carton of half-eaten lo mein on the coffee table.

“Nathaniel…? What are you doing here? What time is it?” She scrubs a hand over her face and studies him with guarded curiosity.

He opens his mouth to apologize for the hour, to excuse himself and let her go back to sleep. But he thinks about the lawyer girl again, and the string of other girls before her, the ones who were too much or not enough, and he takes a deep breath.

“You said you weren’t ready for a relationship, and I respect that. I’ve tried to move on and…forget. But I can’t. I can’t keep kissing strangers and pretending that they’re you.” Her eyes widen and her mouth comes open, but he pushes on. “I didn’t come here to pressure you. I-I don’t really know why I came here. But I needed you to know that. And to know that when—if—you decide you’re ready, I’ll be here.”

He takes in her stunned silence, her furrowed brow. He tries to commit the way she looks, small and shocked and rumpled, to memory, because he’s not sure he’ll ever get the chance to see it again.

“Okay,” he says after a moment. “That’s it. Good night.”

He nods to her once and turns to go. His body feels heavy.

“Wait! Nath—” Her voice is loud, screechy. She clears her throat and tries again. “Nathaniel.”

He pauses, turns. She’s clutching the edge of the door, hiding half her body behind it like a child.

“Do you…want to come inside?”

_Yes_ , he wants to say.  _Yes yes yes._

“That’s not why I came here,” he says instead.

Rebecca chews her bottom lip and shrugs. “I know.”

He searches her face for hesitancy and finds her strangely unreadable.

“Are you sure?”

“I think so.”

“You think so?”

“Yes.” She opens the door wider.

He stares, swallows hard, and nods. She moves out of the way to let him in. As he passes her, she catches his hand, and her touch is electric. It’s everything he’s tried so hard to find in someone else.

“I can’t promise anything,” she says.

“I know.”

“I mean it.”

“Okay.”

She offers him a small smile and closes the door. When she settles onto the couch next to him and lifts his arm to fit herself beneath it, he squeezes her close and revels in her presence, perfect and warm. Then she tilts her face up to his and kisses him sweetly, and he feels—for the first time since she walked out his door—like he can breathe.


	9. "i kind of feel like i owe you."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which rebecca thanks nathaniel for flying in her dad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompted by notbang on tumblr.

"What's this?" Nathaniel sets his pen down and looks at the brown paper bag on his desk cautiously, like it might explode. "What are you doing here?"

Seeing Rebecca in the office during work hours is a rarity. Seeing Rebecca in the office _after_ work hours, after the sun has set, while she's on what she's annoyingly taken to calling "matrimony leave" is a downright miracle.

"It's for you." She nudges it closer with her fingertips, encouraging. "Go on."

He picks up the bag, pulls out the bottle of amber liquid inside, rotates it to read the label. Balvenie. Expensive. He raises his eyebrows and holds the bottle like a question mark.

"I kind of feel like I owe you." She holds her hands behind her back, almost bashful if he squints. "For...you know. For my dad."

Ah.

"And, I mean, I don't know what you like, but the guy at the liquor store said that was good, and you seem like a scotch guy. The suits and the..." Her eyes swipe over his body, unable to settle anywhere. "I figured it was a good choice."

"Yeah," he says, ignoring the strange feeling in his chest, the feeling like he's already taken a drink, even though he hasn't yet broken the seal. "Yeah, no, scotch is... It's good. But if you really wanted to pay me back, you could just come into work."

She quirks an eyebrow, pretends to reach for the bottle. "If you don't want it..."

"No," he says, maybe a little too quickly. He stands, holding his gift in both hands. "No, I'll take it. I have a feeling I'm not going to get the other thing."

Her lips bend into the ghost of a smile and she moves backwards, inching towards the door. "Well... There you go. I should... I was just heading home from picking up the wine for the rehearsal dinner, and I saw the light was still on up here, so I stopped, and now I've done what I came here to do, so I should... I'm gonna go."

"Wait." The words come out on their own, like somebody else is controlling his body and he's helpless to watch. "Uh, my father says it's bad form to not offer the first drink to the person who gave you the bottle."

She regards him with a raised brow. "He does?"

He doesn't, but it sounds like something he could say, which is close enough to count. Nathaniel nods.

"Well." She smiles like maybe she knows he's lying. Like maybe she doesn't care. "Guess we wouldn't want to disappoint your dad. Pour 'em up, Plimpton."

All they have in the office are coffee mugs, not the delicate glass tumblers he keeps on his shelf at home for drinks like this, and he knows the quality will suffer, but he has a feeling she isn't the sort of drinker to notice or care. He doesn't know why he notices or cares whether she notices or cares. He doesn't know why he's pouring two fingers of two hundred dollar scotch into two coffee mugs, one with clip art scales on the side, the other with a dog wearing a judge's robe and powdered wig.

"To your dad," he says, clinking his mug to hers, because he can't quite bring himself to cheers her impending marriage.

"To your plane," she counters, and takes the first sip.

Her face scrunches, winces, her cheeks reddening already, and he watches, amused.

"Oh, god." She coughs, sticks out her tongue. Notices him watching. "It's, uh, it's good."

He takes a drink, savoring the bite and the burn, the scorch in his throat, the warmth suffusing through his chest. One drink isn't enough to impair his judgement, not by a long shot, but when he looks back later, he'll blame what comes out of his mouth next on the alcohol anyway.

"How's it going? The wedding planning?"

She appraises him carefully, like maybe he's grown another head. Like maybe he's the thing about to explode.

"Really?"

"What?" He takes a larger drink, lets the rich liquid sting his tongue. "Seems like the thing to ask."

She raises her mug to her mouth and holds it there against her bottom lip. He doesn't think about what that bottom lip would taste like drenched in whisky.

"It's almost done," she says. "My wedding planner is...surprisingly efficient."

"To your wedding planner, then," he says, and they drink. She only flinches a little this time.

—

They're on the floor. He can't quite remember how they got here. They were by the desk, and then they were on the couch, and now they're on the floor. Her shoes are off, his tie is loosened. Their mugs are nearly empty, and there's still plenty of refill left in the bottle, but maybe not as much as there should be.

She's laughing, telling him a story, something about her fiancé, something about how they met. She's singing, swaying like a sailor, and he thinks maybe this is how they ended up on the floor. Her, unsteady, flushed, giggly. Him, bewildered, uncertain, entertained. He blames it on the scotch. He's had significantly more than one drink now. He can do that.

If he were himself right now—because surely that's the only explanation, right, that he's possessed by the force of some spirit (ha, ha, spirit, he's funny) who does things like this, drinks in the office, sits on the floor—perhaps he'd realize how absurd this is. But he's not himself, he's possessed, so it's okay that all he's thinking about is how they sat like this not two weeks ago, in significantly worse lighting, debating Tim-as-Gryffindor or Tim-as-Hufflepuff. (Gryffindor, they'd decided. Karen had been the hardest to pin down. They'd finally settled on Slytherin by mascot alone.)

He only realizes she's stopped talking when she knocks her mug—empty now—against his knee and says, "What are you staring at?"

I'm not staring, I'm possessed, he nearly says.

"I think," he says instead, "it's time to call an Uber."

And look at that. That's responsible. That's smart. Maybe he's been exorcised.

"Mm, yeah." Rebecca wiggles her nose and stretches her back. "I didn't mean to..." She reaches for the bottle, swishes the remaining liquid in front of her face. "Oops."

And then she giggles again, and there are little lines around her eyes, little crinkles testifying a history of giggles. Does he have those? Surely not. Surely not. His face, he's confident, is smooth and unmarred. No proof of anything except excellence.

(But there's something about it on her... There's something.)

"It was my idea," he says, shaking his head, fumbling with his phone.

"You should know better, boss." And she's giggling some more, and does she ever stop, is she one big giggle? He's never heard someone giggle so much, didn't even know it was something anyone over the age of seventeen did.

(But there's something about it from her. Something.)

He should know better, that's the thing. He absolutely should. Flying his employee's parent around on his family aircraft isn't a thing he does. Drinking the pricy booze said employee brings him as payment for said aircraft usage with said employee herself on his office floor after the sun has set, when the office is empty, when there's nothing to distract him from the fact that said employee really is quite pretty is another thing he definitely doesn't do.

(But... There's something.)

He orders two separate Ubers, because they live on opposite sides of town and it's practical, and because he's crossed enough lines in the last two weeks. Some should be left intact.

(He makes a note to get to the office extra early tomorrow, because how would that look, the boss's car in the lot, and Rebecca's car in the lot, and the boss and Rebecca nowhere to be found? His employees are dumb, but not that dumb.)

"So thanks for..." She waves a vague, encompassing hand and stands up too quickly. He can see the exact second the lightheadedness hits her. She blinks once, then sways, and he's there before he can think about it, up on his knees to steady her.

She's only a few inches taller than him like this, and it's interesting, because he notices new things, like the tip of her nose and the length of her eyelashes. So maybe he's still possessed.

"Thanks," she says again, her hands on his shoulders. "God, I'm... Whoo. I'm sorry. I did not mean to drink so much of... Guess I needed that."

She chuckles self-deprecatingly, but he's still a few steps behind, musing on her inability to complete sentences while tipsy. His brain catches up though, eventually, it's not a perfect Plimpton brain for nothing, and he looks up at her. (Up—how novel. How entirely surreal.)

"Getting jittery?"

"No," she scoffs. "No, it's just...stressful. Wedding stuff. It's..."

"But worth it, right? That's what you think? That it's worth it?"

"Of course." She smoothes his collar, not meeting his eyes, and he can't remember the last time a woman fixed his clothes for him. He can't remember if a woman has ever fixed his clothes for him. He doesn't want to like it. "Of course it is. It's... He's... It's everything."

He can smell the booze on her breath, knows she can smell the same on his. Is it possible to get drunk on fumes?

"Why'd you come here?" he asks, and yes, it's definitely possible to get drunk on fumes, because surely that's the only explanation for this.

Rebecca blinks, her pale eyes glassy. "To—thank you. Properly."

Her skin is so flushed, her little bow mouth so pink. He's eye-to-lip with it and he can't stop himself from looking.

"That all?"

"Yes," she says, barely moves her mouth to do it.

What are you doing, he shouts at himself. What are you doing what are you doing what are you doing.

"Really?"

"Yes."

He doesn't believe her. He doesn't know if it's intuition or wishful thinking. He doesn't have the time to find out, because his phone chimes, a driver's here, and they jerk apart like they've been burned.

"You, uh, go ahead," he says. "I'll take the second one."

"Right." She still looks unsteady, but for different reasons. "Um, I guess I'll see you..."

When you're married, he thinks. When you've tethered yourself inextricably to another person, a boring person, when you've begun the descent to divorce, when you're too blinded to notice it just yet.

"Later," he finishes for her.

"Yeah. Later."

She's gone before he's up off his knees. He stays there for a moment, kneeling in his office, a supplicant at the altar of a too-empty bottle of scotch. He stares at it, uncaps it, swigs straight from the neck.

He realizes as he's climbing into the back of a Ford Taurus that smells like Fritos that he forgot to say thank you.


	10. "you’re a commercial real estate lawyer, you buffoon. not a criminal defense attorney."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> an absolutely absurd and intentionally ridiculous, bordering-on-meta, almost-crack ficlet where context doesn’t matter and canon can go screw itself!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompted by notbang on tumblr.

“Wait, let me get this straight.” Rebecca leaned across Nathaniel for the remote and muted the movie. It was one of those made-for-TV mystery flicks, the kind that nobody ever intends to watch, the kind that you just sort of stumble across in the middle of the night. “Are you seriously telling me that if, in some bizarro alternate universe, I were to commit involuntary manslaughter, you would not only represent me, but your big plan would be to make me plead insanity? Seriously?”

Nathaniel shrugged, like he couldn’t see anything wrong, and rested an arm along the back of the couch. “Why not? I’m not saying you  _are_  insane. But a judge wouldn’t need to know the difference.”

She leaned back and stared at him, eyebrows raised.

“What?” he asked, defensive.

“That’s the worst plan I’ve ever heard.”

“Wh—”

“First of all, you’re a commercial real estate lawyer, you buffoon. Not a criminal defense attorney. The idea that you’d even represent me in the first place is laughable.”

“But—”

“You’d be better off reaching into those plentiful Plimpton pockets and getting me a real lawyer who does, like, crimes and stuff.” She poked his hip, and he squirmed. “And insanity, Nathaniel? Really?”

He sighed and toyed with the ends of her hair. “It’d be better than what they did,” he grumbles, inclining his head towards the TV.

The “they” in question, a husband-wife lawyer team who found themselves in deep trouble after the wife accidentally shoved her husband’s stalker off a balcony, were proceeding through a muted hearing. The husband’s big idea was to muddle the evidence enough to make it look as though the stalker had committed suicide. Backwards. After being repeatedly punched in the face by the husband himself.

(It wasn’t a very good movie.)

“Barely,” Rebecca said, leaning into him. “It’s barely better than what they did.”

He hummed softly but didn’t concede.

“Tell you what.” She threaded her fingers through his and squeezed his hand. “If I’m ever in a property dispute, you can represent the hell out of me. But if I ever try to kill someone…”

“Cover up the evidence and whisk you away to start a new life in Monaco?” There was a playful glint in his eye.

Rebecca laughed and kissed his jaw. “Not exactly where I was going, but you know…that’s actually the best idea you’ve had yet.”


	11. "there's no going back if we do this."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> short, sweet aimless fluff in a future where 3b probably never happened. everyone’s favorite!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompted by heartbash and notbang on tumblr.

“There’s no going back if we do this, you know that, right?” Her pen hovered, uncapped and ready, unable to do the job.

“Obviously. I knew that when I asked you.”

“I know you know, but I need to know that you  _know_. If we do this, there will be no more starfishing across the bed and having unrivaled control of the thermostat. And there will always, always be hair in the shower drain. I shed like a poodle.”

“Poodles are hypoallergenic, actually.”

She fixed him with a withering stare. He elected to ignore it.

“And as for the other things…” He shrugged. “I haven’t been able to sprawl across my bed with the temperature set any lower than seventy-two in months, and you know it.”

“Yeah, but Nathaniel…are you  _sure_? Are you sure you want to be stuck with…this?” She waved a hand in front of her face and widened her eyes at him.

He glanced at the realtor on the other side of the desk watching them with unconcealed impatience, her arms folded neatly across her chest. Nathaniel took Rebecca by the elbow and pulled her a few steps away, leaning in to give them some modicum of privacy.

“What’s this about? I thought this was what you wanted.”

“No, it—it is. I just need to make sure it’s what  _you_  want.”

“Have I given you any reason to doubt? Have I—hey.” He caught her chin gently in his hand and tipped her face up to his. “Have I done anything to make you think I’m less than absolutely sure about this?”

She paused, chewed on her lip. “No, but…you could change your mind. You could wake up in two weeks and realize you’ve made a mistake. You need to know what you’re getting into.”

He smiled at that, at the implication that he could have anything less than a complete picture of  _exactly_  what he was getting into. Over two years with Rebecca Bunch, and yeah, he knew. He knew the ups, he knew the downs, he knew the turbulent middle ground. He knew what she ate for breakfast and how she talked in her sleep. He knew the dosage of her medications, which ones had to be taken with food or without. He knew her mother’s phone number and Audra Levine’s address. He knew when to leave her alone, when to stay by her side, when to let her cry, when to call her out. He knew.

“I do,” he said. “Believe me. Do you? Because you’re right. If we do this, there isn’t any going back. You’re going to be legally, contractually obligated to fight me for the thermostat for the next twelve months. But if you’re not one hundred percent on board, if you need some more time… Tell me now.”

She drew her bottom lip into her mouth and worried it between her teeth. He could see her thinking, could see the little lines between her brows and the faraway look in her eyes, and he held his breath. Finally, she nodded slowly and met his gaze.

“A hundred percent,” she said. “Yes.”

“You’re sure?” A smile tugged at the corners of his lips and he was helpless to let it.

She nodded, her face softening. “I’m sure.”

“You don’t need more time?”

“No.” She took his hand in hers and squeezed. “I’m ready.”

He was grinning now, but so was she.

“Alright, then.” He pulled her back to the desk and pointed to the blank line next to his signature. “Sign, Bunch.”

And she signed.


End file.
